Balance
Warning: This section covers FAQ for Mafia and is transcluded in the Guide to Hosting Please don't make changes unless you wish these changes to be included in that guide! Balance is a term used in Mafia to describe the initial position of a game before roles are assigned. A game's balance is said to be good when the chances of any faction winning is about equal. A common "balance breaker" is the unforeseeable random assignment of roles to players, and how well any player utilizes his role. "The pursuit of balance can create imbalance because sometimes something is true." -Okrent's Law The following is called Weighting, a method devised by BrandonB and used to evaluate the balance of a game by numerically weighting roles according how much they can potentially impact a Mafia game. It is separated into the categories *Basic Roles, *Augmentations, *BTSC, and *Win Conditions. For more information on these roles, please refer to the roles section of this wiki. Basic Roles/Abilities: *Spy (active or passive) = 1 *Broadcast (Adding to the Night Post) = 1 *Messenger (Communications - Secret Messages) = 1 *Vote change / Vote weight manipulation (Vote Redirect or Multiplier) = 1 *Lynch Frame (Falsifying Lynch Results) = 2 *Bodyguard ** If X is unkillable while Bodyguard is alive, then Bodyguard = 2 ** If Bodyguard kills the attacker, but also dies with the attacker, then Bodyguard = 2 ** And if Bodyguard dies in X's place, then Bodyguard = 1 *Individual Kill (Single) = 3 *RID Kill (If target can be saved) = 1 *RID Kill (If target CANNOT be saved) = 2 *Lynch Save (Lynch Stopper) = 3 *Lynch Save (From the night post, everyone knows the target cannot be lynched) = 1.5 *Role Assumption (Assumes ability of deceased player) = 2 *Role Copy (for single night) = 3 *Role Copy (accumulating) = Add all weights of all roles, divided by square root of number of players. *Multiple Abilities **If all are used at the same time on 1 target = All must be added together **If multiple abilities at the same time, and possibly multiple targets = All added together and +1 to the total **If forced use of 1 specific ability of a collection of possible abilities (die roll) and 1 target = 2 **If choice of 1 specific ability of a collection of abilities at 1 target = Highest weighted ability in the collection. *Save = 1.5 *Ability Redirect** = 2.5 *Block** = 2.5 **If included in the night post, gets +1 because it can leak a lot of information on the target of the action (equal to a potential public spy/reveal) Augmentations *Restricted to "not the same player 2x in a row" = -0.5 *Restricted to “not usable 2 nights in a row” = -1 *Restricted to "Odd/Even/Prime Nights" = X/2 *Anything else that generally acts negatively on a role = -1 *Lesser requirement for successful lynch = -1 *Adding an RID Requirement = -1 *Knows the ID of a non-BTSC-sharing player = +0.5 *Un-spyable (Looks like a general role or beneficial faction) = +1 *Unblockable = +1 *Un-killable (at night) = +3, (during the day) = +2 *Enslavement (another player dies in his place) = single = +3, cumulative = number of total players divided by 2 *Secret ability = +2 Faction Extras *BTSC (for entire group) = X2 MULTIPLIER! Group’s total added weight multiplied by 2 *Group Kill = +4 (Added AFTER BTSC multiplier!!!) *Secret Faction = ??? (at least 0.5 x number of members if they don't have BTSC but they know each other IDs) *Betrayer/Mole = ??? (at least +2 for the actual faction?, at least +0.5 for each ID known, at least 1 for the ability of creating a confusion?) - if a role is part of one faction / BTSC, but actually is aligned with another faction. Win Conditions *Last Standing = No Bonus *Must Kill/Spy/ID/Act upon X Players in any order = MULTIPLIER! (W*N)/(X*X) Where W is the faction's total weight, N is the total number of players in the game, and X is the number of roles needed to affect. E.g. a faction with weight 4 (a kill and a spy) that needs to kill 2 players in a 10 player game would have an adjusted weight of (4*10)/(2*2)=10. *Outlive X = If X is a balanced faction that has a wincon of "last standing", then the multiplier is N*((F-1)/F) where N is the number of players in the game, and F is the number of factions with "last standing" wincons. E.g. a faction with weight 4 (W=4, e.g. a kill and a spy) that needs to outlive 1 balanced Faction in a 10 player game (N=10) with 2 factions with "last standing" wincons (F=2) would have an adjusted weight of 4*10*(2-1)/2=20. *Secret WinCon = +3 Evaluating Faction Weight #Calculate each role's basic weight and edit according to augmentations in order to get the final weight of each role. #Add all final weights together within a faction (If any small groups within a faction have BTSC, calculate their BTSC with the multiplier BEFORE adding them with the rest of the faction). #Add any Faction Extras. #Adjust faction weight according to WinCon. #Repeat for each faction. Evaluating Balance * Add all Faction Weights together to get the Total Game Weight * Individually divide each faction by the Total Game Weight. * The resulting percentages are the estimated win probabilities for each faction. * The smaller the spread between the highest and lowest percentages, the better the game is balanced. * A spread of 5% or less is considered balanced, a spread between 5% and 10% is unbalanced and should be fixed, and a spread of 10% or greater will is not playable and will not be accepted into the game queue. Category:MafiaTerms